What Is a Belly Gun?

Today most people think a belly gun is one that is carried in front of the belly, in other words appendix carry. But traditionally the myth of the snub-nosed revolver is that it is only good for jamming into someone’s belly when they are right on top of you, and that it’s not much good for defensive use beyond arm’s reach or when you’re in direct contact with a threat.

But the fact is that you can develop skill with the snub-nosed revolver in order to get combat accurate hits relatively easily. Just understand that you are trading the convenience of the package and the reliability of the system for extra work on the double-action trigger.

On the Range with the 642

Rob demonstrates getting an extremely accurate hit with the 642 at 20 feet — proof that it can be done. But in reality, you would never need to be that accurate in a defensive situation. When we talk about being precise with a snub-nosed revolver, we’re talking about being able to hit your target.

It can be done, but it does take more effort, training, time and energy to get to that level of precision with the snub-nosed revolver. You have many self-defense tools to choose from when arming yourself. The snub-nosed revolver is worth considering. It’s not only for use when you’re in the clinch and jamming it into someone’s belly.

Brain Sabol discusses the importance of defensive firearms training for a 360 degree world, even on a typical square range. Brian offers some ideas for how you can train more realistically even when your live-fire options don’t include 360 degrees.

Rob Pincus discusses zeroing your home defense long gun optic and why the normal rules of The Plausibility Principle are trumped by the efficiency of zeroing your rifle for much further distances than you would most likely be using it.

Student alert! If your defensive firearms instructor is not giving you an integrated system of firearm manipulation techniques but rather a set of unconnected techniques that don't integrate well together, don't reinforce each other, and don't contribute to your efficiency by being consistent with one another, you need to challenge those techniques.

Instructor Don Edwards discusses and demonstrates the differences between shooting with a bipod and shooting from an improvised rest. Both methods can dramatically increase deviation control, but the improvised rest techniques are much more versatile and universal.